


Volatility

by zenstrike



Series: we’re walking lines in parallel [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: EMOTIONAL BECAUSE I AM WHO I AM, Gay Keith (Voltron), Keith is dramatic and emotionally screwy, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Romance, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 03:51:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15040076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: flashpoint (noun): a place, event, or time at which trouble, such as violence or anger, flares up; the temperature at which a particular organic compound gives off sufficient vapor to ignite in air.or, tensions run high and Keith is caught.





	Volatility

**Author's Note:**

> near the end of s2 and—odd. thanks for reading.

Their flashpoint is at the edge of a fistfight. Keith feels it in the coiled tension in his fists, in the building pressure in his knuckles and the tightness in his back. He sees it in the curl to Lance’s lips and the crunch of his shoulders like his ribcage is something he could bury himself in, just collapse in so he can vanish somewhere far away from Keith. It’s been months. It’s been a roller coaster of ups and downs and piloting a giant robot and discovering Shiro’s still alive and that Keith himself isn’t as human as he first thought.

    He’s half-convinced they’re going to die. They’re going to come up in front of Zarkon and no amount of preparedness and teamwork and magical lions is going to save them. And he’s pissed off about it, and Lance is stressed about it.

    And they explode in a flurry.

    Banter dissolves into hisses and stunted shouts, and it’s such a mess none of the others will come close and Lance—he’s grown like a warmth at the back of Keith’s mind, insistent and pressing and constant and like Red but not. He’s magic in his own right. He’s horrible. He’s loud. He’s a wall Keith can’t seem to climb over, and a constant reminder of all the ways they don’t match.

    When Lance’s back hits the wall, he gasps like he’s surprised he moved, that he ran away. He’s shaking, he’s frazzled, he’s angry.

    _No_ , Keith thinks and he flashes through a hundred scenarios of Lance shoving him out an airlock or Voltron breaking apart because they can’t get past this.

    _No,_  Keith thinks and there’s a smaller him that’s more vulnerable and drawn to adventure stories and grand romantic gestures even if he can’t get his mouth around the right kinds of words—and that smaller him is screaming not to do this, not to let this spiral in a direction they can’t come back from.

    _No,_  Keith thinks but all he can hear is their breathing and the stuttered, dying insults leaking out of their mouths.

    Lance is like Red, he thinks and he grips that oversized jacket with his trembling fists. Lance is like that voice in his head, that yelling and that steadiness—that paradox that drives him forward and rescues him from his own painful insides.

    He wants to say so many things: I could be yours, if you wanted; I want to be yours, if you’ll let me.

    But no.

    “You’re so stupid,” he manages out around a rock in his throat.

    “Shut up,” Lance says and slaps his palms against the wall behind him instead of shoving Keith away. He leans his head back—no, cracks the back of his head against the wall as he jerks away and almost bares his teeth. Keith watches his nostrils flare and his mouth tighten and a muscle in his cheek bounce and it’s all hyper-real.

    Hyper-real, and non-real. Keith’s head spins.

    “You piss me off,” he tries to say but just grunts because his voice steals away at the most important times.

    “Shut up,” Lance says and squeezes his eyes shut. “Just go away.”

    It isn’t fair. None of it’s fair. Keith goes day-to-day in space with a lion in his head and an unknown history clawing at his insides and the only constant is this and he doesn’t want it.

    He holds on.

    “No,” he says.

    “No _what_?” Lance snaps. His hands come up and wrap around Keith’s wrists. Keith’s grip on Lance’s jacket tightens.

    His pulse ricochets against his skin, bounces against Lance’s hands. It wouldn’t be like this if they hadn’t left. It wouldn’t be like this if anyone else had—but nobody else could have done what Lance has done, from finding the Blue lion to—this. Lance’s eyes are still closed.

    Sometimes Keith thinks he could be a romantic hero, something out of a novel—half-alien or no, queer kid or no. Sweep a nice boy off his feet and into a sun-soaked future: that had been the goal except Keith has always been more about running away and tracing shapes in the sand in darkness.

    He wants to say something but he breathes in and out. Lance’s hands are hot and tight around his wrists.

    “I can’t do this,” Keith says but he clings tighter and they breathe the same air.

    The muscle jumps again in Lance’s cheek. He opens his eyes, narrow and blue. Keith can’t remember why they’re fighting. Tension, yes—and a half-realized remark out of the side of his own mouth.

    “Fine,” Lance almost spits.

    “I want to kiss you,” Keith says around the rock in his throat.

    Lance falters. His hands slip and his eyes widen. He goes from angry to flustered in a split-second and then one more and the anger’s back, flooding his face and his cheeks and his eyes.

    “What?”

    “I want,” Keith says again, a little desperate and a little pissed off. “—to kiss you.”

    He stutters, just a bit.

    “What?”

    Keith sees the world spin. He comes so close the tips of their noses bump, comical and unnecessary. Lance’s jacket’s zippers dig into his palms.

    “You heard me,” he says, low and harsh like it’s another insult.

    They stare at each other, nose to nose. Lance closes his mouth and Keith feels one of his lungs melt away. Lance sucks air in through his nose.

    Something reverberates through Keith. If this were to happen, he thinks he wants it to be romantic. Soft. He wants to card his hands through Lance’s hair and cradle his face and then close his eyes.

    Flashpoint. They clash. It feels a little hopeless, like teetering on the edge and waiting to fall.

    “Fine,” Lance says. “ _Fine_.”

    Keith forgets to breathe. His vision goes a little fuzzy.

    “Kiss me,” Lance says, a little desperate and a little pissed off.

    They clash, and they crash.

    Keith seizes the stunned moment of silence in his overactive brain and—kisses Lance. It isn’t soft. He forgets to breathe. It’s barely a kiss: neither of them move, their closed mouths brushing and Lance’s eyes boring into Keith’s.

    Keith, horrified, draws back. He doesn’t let go.

    They stare at each other. His stomach flips.

    “That sucked,” Lance deadpans.

    “Shut up,” Keith replies, and kisses him.

    Eyes closed, breath caught, heart pounding, kisses him. Lance sighs and melts into him and Keith stays standing, somehow. He feels Lance’s hands slide up his arms and squeeze his shoulders like Keith has caught him, somehow, lifted him—

    Keith pulls back and huffs a breath. He still smells the powdery sweetness of Lance’s skin, like the soap they all use and something else warm and enveloping.

    They stare at each other.

    Lance’s eyes are wide and his lips slightly parted.

    “Oh no,” he says.

    Keith’s stomach flips again.

    “Lance,” Keith says, sounding steadier than he feels. When the rest of the words don’t come he kisses Lance again. He holds on tight and he presses himself to Lance and Lance to the wall and Lance sighs against him again and it goes right to Keith’s stomach and it inflates his heart.

    “Lance,” he says again against Lance’s lips. “Lance.”

    Lance makes a noise that’s so obnoxiously, wonderfully Lance-like Keith thinks he’s going to float away so he holds on tighter.

    Then they hear the humming at the same time and freeze, together, and stick, together.

    Coran’s humming becomes whistling, like a warning screech in the night except it’s a familiar sound, a home-like sound.

    Keith pulls back so quickly he stumbles. He feels himself break out of Lance’s hold, and feels himself let go so quickly Lance seems to sag.

    “Keith,” Lance says, quiet and warning or—comforting.

    Keith thinks about them dying in the immediate future. He sees Voltron breaking apart in his head and then feels Lance under his hands like he hasn’t had a chance to actually feel—yet.

    He swallows.

    He makes a decision somewhere in an uncertain vacuum of emotion.

    “See you,” he says hoarsely and turns away just as Lance begins to slide down the wall and Coran’s footsteps carry him down the corner.

    He can’t get away fast enough.


End file.
